Saturday, October 19, 2013

So I get fan mail all the time. Usually it comes in one
of three flavors, the “Who are you?” flavor, the “I want to have your babies”
flavor, and my personal favorite, the “You are a horrible person that is shallow, please die” flavor.

Every once and awhile though, I get an email I can work
with. Recently this one came across the ole MMM desk:

I was wondering if you could clear
something up for me. What does the male mormon mind think about girl
fashion trends that girls think are cute vs. girl fashion trends that guys
think are cute?

This is a very interesting question. The thing about guys is, we don't notice the same stuff girls notice (which to many girls means we don't notice anything). Girls seem to notice the little touches and specifics of another girls appearance (the earrings, the shoes, colors stuff?). In some ways, girls dress up for other girls, not for guys. Anyways, guys rarely notice such things (unless we are of the metro-sexual variety). We do however notice things on the aggregate though. For example, we appreciate and have a sense if a girl dresses nicely and and puts effort into that kind of thing. We really do. It really makes girls more attractive to us for the most part. But ask us what in particular we like or what we noticed that makes the difference between a girl that dresses nice and one that doesn't, and you will get alot of blank stares and cause alot of headaches. (We do notice cleavage and stuff like that, but even then its many times subconsciously.)

That being said, I sat down with my roomies and tried to brainstorm what "girl fashion trends we think are cute", all quoutes are totally 100% word-for-word quotes and they are all dead serious.

1. "I like when girls wear those Lamanite shoes" - I asked for some clarification. "You know, those sandals with all the straps" He tried to googling phrases such as "Lamanite shoes" and "sandals with a lot of straps" but for some reason could not find what he had in mind.

Picture not available

(apparently no cameras existed during the time of the Lamanites)

2. " I don't like those skirts that go up too high" I asked if he meant short skirts. "No, like the top is too high, the bottom is not too high" After a little bit more discussion and some googling, we think he was talking about something called Pencil Skirts? I'm really have no clue, but a picture of what he had in mind is below. Anyways, we all agreed that these skirts make girls butts look weird. Sorry, just calling like we see it.

3. "I hate hipster shorts" "Like ugly pants, just without the leg part" I guess they are short shorts that are like too big or something? Apparently again the issue is it makes girls' butts look weird. This conversation is starting to take a very definite theme...

4. "Boy's basketball styled shorts under any circumstances is unattractive" We are all agreed on this. Is it a fashion trend? No. Do we all hate it? Yes. Is the reason we hate it have to do with something that sounds like gakes birls lutts wook meird? You betcha. Wow we really do have one-track minds.

5."Big fat belts are ugly, they don't even connect to anything!" We all knew what this one was, and we all agreed that belts are for holding things up (or turning the crankshaft in your engine).

We kinda gave up after that. It was a good 30 minutes of discussing and searching the internet for girls clothing trends. By my estimation, that 30 minutes should hold me over for the next 2000 years.

Conclusion: We didn't know what the #$@% we were talking about. We didn't even know how to find what we were talking about on the internet (which is saying something). We gave it the old college try and ended up just talking about what made girls butts look weird. In the words on my newest roommate, "I just like it when they wear cute things". What are those cute things called? Beats me. But I know it when I see it.